Evidence of innocence

[drstrange169]

>>the normal thing to do as the person approaches is to say something along the lines of ...hey look here theres a woman down.<<

Normal to you perhaps, but as I and others have said, I'd want to be sure I was safe from the approaching person first.

People are different, you might be a whole lot braver than R.J. and I, but that does not mean are reactions are not normal to us. Therefore you cannot say Cross's action are abnormal to the every single person in whole the world.

[Mark J D]

... as i pointed out in my recent earlier post it just seems so odd to me. such an agressive manuever given the circumstances. its almost like lech cant let paul pass without ascertaining if hes seen anything.

Whats that? Lechmere refuses to get hold of the woman and help Paul sit her up? Well, that's clearly because he was man from a scrupulously clean home who simply wan't prepared to lay hands on some stranger found lying in the street in case they were dirty and infested...

What's that? Lechmere walks over to Robert Paul and deliberately, invasively lays a hand on him as he tries to go past? Well, that's clearly because men from poor Victorian backgrounds lived in overcrowded conditions with little privacy and didn't have our kind of reservations about close proximity and making actual physical contact with strangers...

There is a word for what we're seeing. And it isn't a nice one.

M.

[John Wheat]

Lechmere found a body so what? The rest is bullshit dreamt up by idiots.

[Mark J D]

>>You people can't even handle the name without metaphorical gloves, can you?<<

Since he indisputably used two names, what's the problem?

God Almighty, what a river of garbage I am swimming in...

Kłosowski indisputably called himself Chapman, yet when were people on here lining up to refer to him as 'Chapowski' or 'Kłosman'...?

Answer: never. Because Lechmere's candidacy has people all bent out of shape, and Kłosowski's doesn't.

M.

[John Wheat]

God Almighty, what a river of garbage I am swimming in...

Kłosowski indisputably called himself Chapman, yet when were people on here lining up to refer to him as 'Chapowski' or 'Kłosman'...?

M.

Chapman another weak suspect but nowhere near as weak as Lechmere.

[Trevor Marriott]

Finding the body is not the same as being found by the body by a witness.

He found the body, and was then found by the body by the witness the two run into each other

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[GBinOz]

totally disagree. its a bizarre and agressive way to get someones attention. especially in those circs. you are literally getting in someones personal space and making physical contact. especially in a darkened street known for roughs. the normal thing to do as the person approaches is to say something along the lines of ...hey look here theres a woman down.

Hi Abby,

Totally agree with you on this point.

Cheers, George

[drstrange169]

>>Kłosowski indisputably called himself Chapman, yet when were people on here lining up to refer to him as 'Chapowski' or 'Kłosman'...?<<

Do the people who favour as a suspect claim there is an unresolved conspiracy behind the use of Chapman? Kłosowski was tried and convicted, largely the facts of his life are settled. How are the two cases comparable?

Simple solution, if you don't want to swim in dirty water, don't dedicate in it.

[rjpalmer]

God Almighty, what a river of garbage I am swimming in...

Kłosowski indisputably called himself Chapman, yet when were people on here lining up to refer to him as 'Chapowski' or 'Kłosman'...?

Answer: never. Because Lechmere's candidacy has people all bent out of shape, and Kłosowski's doesn't.

M.

Why all the constant melodrama?

As far as I am able to gather, the name 'Crossmere' was coined by Gary Barnett clear back in 2014, and I think he meant it as a sort of lighthearted middle-ground. That's who I picked it up from.

And I'd hardly call Mr. Barnett 'bent out of shape' by the Lechmere theory; he's had several positive things to say about it. The use of the name is not the vast conspiracy you think it is.

31 August 2014:

As a comparative outsider it presents to me as an amusing parlour game. So long as people adhere to rules: no lies , no excessive stretching of facts and no personal animosity it's surely harmless enough. And if it encourages people to scurry off and research obscure little byways that's all to the good.

If all posterity ever gets from the Crossmere debate is a photo of Charles and his family's rags to riches story, it will not have been a total waste of time.

MrB

[rjpalmer]

The man described by George Hutchinson tapped Mary Kelly on the shoulder while she was walking down a dark street in the early morning hours. She didn't scream bloody murder and go running down the street; she burst out laughing at what we said to her as he did this.

There is nothing inherently sinister about tapping someone on the shoulder; Lechmere could have said something soothing or reassuring to Paul at the same time.

Interpreting all of Lechmere's actions as sinister first started in the early 21st Century; no contemporaries seem to have given his actions any of these interpretations.

[Herlock Sholmes]

None of us were there. Yes it’s the bleeding obvious but I just thought that it needed saying. Paul himself doesn’t exactly come across as Mr Perfect does he?

So if he was initially reluctant to hang around, perhaps keener to continue on to work, but Lechmere tapped him on the shoulder or even tried to guide him toward the body, is that really so strange? Some might even suggest that Lechmere was the one doing the right thing while Paul just wanted to turn a blind eye? I think that it’s easy to read too much into some situations; to project ourselves onto the situation without actually knowing what that situation was. To assume the sinister.

Then we have the fact that Lechmere wouldn’t sit her up. Again, we don’t know Lechmere but many people aren’t keen to handle dead bodies. I just don’t find it strange at all. I think it’s perfectly normal in fact. I don’t know how I’d react if confronted with a dead body? Some are fine with it and some aren’t.

All that I’m saying is that it’s easy to see things in a sinister light especially when there is so much that we don’t know. If we spend too much time reading between the lines and too little time reading the lines themselves then we can arrive at almost anything.

We know that Lechmere found the body. So why was it considered that he might have killed her? Largely because someone thought ‘well he could have been there longer than he’d said.’ Fair enough, we can’t prove that he wasn’t there earlier than he said but we also can’t prove that he was there longer unless we take his estimated time of leaving the house as a spot on fact. Which it wasn’t. So really that’s a non-point. All we are left with is, well he could have been there earlier, which would probably apply to every single person that has ever found a body.

I’m not dismissing Lechmere. I don’t think that he was the ripper but we can’t categorically prove that. I genuinely don’t see anything suspicious about him though.

[GBinOz]

As with all discussions of times for the Victorian era we are hampered by unsynchronised clocks, time estimates and uncertain start times. In this case, where we are discussing a possible suspect, we only have his word for what time he left home. There are too many variables.

What I find more suspicious is the concept that Lechmere and Paul supposedly walked down Buck's Row so close together but neither saw or heard the other. To me, that raises the possibility that only one of them was walking, and the other was stationary.

Cheers, George

[drstrange169]

Can anyone point me to where Paul said he was late for work when left home?

None of the inquest reports on Paul mention lateness of any kind.

The Lloyds interview claims,

"I was anxious to be punctual at my work"

If he believed he could still get to work on time, how could he be late?


Cross told the inquest,

"Witness: No, sir; he merely said that he would have fetched a policeman, only he was behind time. I was behind time myself."

This could mean both men were worried about being late because they stopped to view the body.

So where does the story that Paul was late for work when he left the house come from?

[drstrange169]

Hah! Automatic spell check:-(

Simple solution, if you don't want to swim in dirty water, don't defecate in it.

[JeffHamm]

hi jeff
happy new year. we can quibble about a minute here or there till the cows come home, but what do we make of the FACT that paul saw lech standing near the poor dead womans body before raising any alarm? in your vast true crime experience, have you ever heard of an innocent witness in such a situation? tis odd to say the least, is it not?

Happy New Year to you too Abby, and good to see you back. By the accounts as given, Paul appears to arrive pretty much on the heals of Cross/Lechmere. Basically, the testimony is that Cross/Lechmere spots what he thinks is a tarpaulin, starts to head towards it, realises it is a woman and he hesitates. It's about that point that he notices that someone is behind him (Paul), waits for him to close the gap, and then engages with him and the two proceed to examine Polly more closely.

He's not really next to the body, he's not hovering over the body, etc, he's reported as being in the middle of the street and that would put him at a not suspicious distance from the body.

As such, the reports are very consistent with an innocent witness, there's nothing within the descriptions that signals otherwise. There are only stories that allow for him to be guilty nonetheless, but those stories are not founded upon evidence - meaning there isn't something those stories account for that the innocent version leaves out.

The timings, as reported, for example, all fit together just fine if he's innocent. His reported position in the street fits with innocence. His behaviours are consistent with innocence (waiting for Paul to arrive, calling Paul's attention to Polly, his actions when they examine Polly, his going for the police with Paul, and his going to the police later to report his involvement, all are consistent with innocence, though like anything, with creative licence they can be painted with sinister overtones).

Basically, one can tell a story where he's not innocent, but the important point is one doesn't have to. That basically means there is no evidence of him being involved, there's no evidence of his guilt, there's only guilty stories one can imagine. That's hardly surprising, though, as with a bit of creative story telling one could make PC Neil her killer, or make Paul her killer, or make one of the horse slaughterers her killer, and so on. The thing about being innocent is that it means he didn't do something (i.e. kill her), and one can never prove a negative. This is what can be taken advantage of when telling stories, one can just insert actions for which there is no evidence and then demand that it be proven he didn't do those things. That's not how it works, though. One needs to show there is evidence that can only be explained if he's guilty, and there isn't anything even approaching that.

I've never said Cross/Lechmere isn't worth looking into because, of course, he is. But when we look into him we find nothing to implicate him, we only find stories that cast him in a guilty light, and sometimes ones that misinterpret the evidence as well (such as claiming he was found by Paul at the body at 3:45 when we know PC Neil finds the body at 3:45 and Paul and Cross/Lechmere are at that time talking with PC Mizen). We know, therefore, Cross/Lechmere and Paul find the body before 3:45, we just don't know exactly how much time before 3:45 that was. We can make an estimate, though, based upon the fact we know where PC Mizen was when they found him, and we can make an estimate of how long it would take to traverse that distance. We also have Paul's statement that suggested it was no more than 4 minutes to get to PC Mizen (though it is unclear when he's starting his internal clock; is that from when they left, or from when they started examining Polly? either could fit, though the latter would suggest their examination of Polly lasted no more than 30 seconds - and given how little they noticed that could be the case). Basically, we can estimate their discovery time as being around 3:41 ish, but of course that's just an estimation, but it also explains why they didn't see PC Neil. In short, it's an estimation we can come to using standard techniques (i.e. average walking speeds, known distances, etc), which ends up explaining why PC Neil doesn't see them and why they don't see PC Neil. That's reassuring, or should be, to us as it suggests our estimation is within reason (not that we've got it exactly right, only that we appear to be close).

If something new were to turn up I might change my mind depending upon what that new information was. But given what we have, I see nothing that indicates he was in any way involved in Polly's death, and even less to suggest he was involved in any of the other murders. And by something new, I don't mean new stories, or new sets of sinister adjectives to colour the presentation of things, I mean new information, new evidence, a new fact, because without that, what we have provides no evidence that reasonably indicates his involvement.

- Jeff